It's been a while!

Sorry I've been such a bad blogger lately. It seems like ever since school started back up, I can't find time to get my daily things done, let alone sit down and blog. Plus, I don't feel like I've had anything exciting to say! So I've been lurking on other people's blogs and spending some time with my "friends" on Facebook. It's much easier to post a sentence or 2 on FB than to come up with several thoughtful paragraphs on my blog.

We've been busy lately. I love this time of year, but there is always SO MUCH to do and so little time to get it done (especially for a procrastinating-dawdler like myself!). My sweet husband turned 35 on the 6th. On his birthday, he got to go see the AZ Cardinals play at their stadium here in Glendale with his dad. He had a great time!! I got to hang out at the fire station a couple weeks ago and ride along with the guys! Tripp was driving that day, so it was fun to see him do that. But we didn't get any exciting calls. I've also been busy working. My job is usually just a 2-day a week thing but since Christmas, we have all this giftwrap we're selling now. So I'm up to my ears in wrapping paper and giftbags and not a whole lot of space on the floor to put it or to even store it in my bin space in the warehouse! But I'm still enjoying it and even though it's really busy, I like that I get to be creative in how I figure out how to display and get it sold! They encourage to think outside the box rather than stick to the confines of a diagram.

So anyway, I thought I'd take the time to show you what else we've been up to lately.

Ryan's class, along with all the 2nd and 3rd grade classes put on a Christmas performance. Here is a picture of him with his wonderful teacher, Mrs. Murray and his buddy Reagan.

Casey's class went on a field trip a farm (this was the 3rd time I've been on this field trip between Ryan going in pre-school and kindergarten and now Casey going in pre-school)

My mom's best friend, Cathy came for a quick visit at the end of November. She and her husband may move to AZ from their home in Gig Harbor, WA! I'm praying that their house sells quick, it would be so great to have them close to us!

My dad and step-mom sent a very thoughtful care package that included new jammies for all 5 of us! Here are the kids wearing theirs.

Casey has been busy playing with Cars

Emily has been busy playing with babies

And last week we got some wet weather so Casey and Emily had fun playing out in the rain!

So that's about it for now! You probably won't hear from me until after Christmas. So have a good one and please remember The Reason for the season!

So Thankful

I have so much to be thankful for. I thank my Savior for what He did for me. I'm thankful for a life of little regret. I'm thankful for my husband who is my soul mate, a man that I could never have dreamed of being so blessed to be married to and call the father of my children. I'm thankful for my children. Three little blessings from Heaven. I'm thankful for my extended family: my dad and step-mom, who are so thoughtful. And though we don't see them as much as we wish because they don't live close, they spoil us with thoughtful care packages and phone calls. I'm thankful for Tripp's parents who spoil us as well. They lavish their grandkids with attention. And I'm thankful for even more extended family in my biological father and his wife, who we've yet to meet, but it feels like we've known them for years.

Thank you Lord, for more blessings and things to be thankful for than I can even comprehend. I pray for a constant attitude of thankfulness, like the apostle Paul when he said, while in prison, "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!" in Phillipians 4:4.

Sunshine and Roses

Emily loves for us to sing her the song "You Are My Sunshine". She loves us to sing to her period! She really likes music. Often when any kind of a song comes on she'll start waving her arms around in her signature dance move (which I've posted in the past). Here are some pictures of her in our front yard (with our new pretty grass that Tripp recently reseeded!). Emily is wearing her "European" outfit that Nan and Papa brought back from their Mediterranean cruise last summer.

He Did It AGAIN!!

Last night at church, my number showed up on the box in the sanctuary. One of my kids needed me. I went out in the foyer and was ushered to Casey's classroom. There he sat with his teacher, crying, while she held a bloody napkin to his chin. Crap. I pulled the napkin away and immediately knew that it needed stitches - AGAIN. It was October 13th when he split his chin open on the slide in our backyard and he had to get 5 stitches. [Just as a side note - that was a "fun" experience. We arrived at the pediatric ER where there were at least 20 sick kids coughing all over the place and we waited (outside, so as to avoid the germs) FOREVER. When all was said and done, we were there about 5 hours] This time we headed to the new pediatric urgent care that recently opened up by our house. Not a single patient was there when we arrived. They were actually excited to see us, and his doctor said this was most exciting thing she'd been able to do all day. And Casey was such a trooper - once again. He amazes me. He layed so still and didn't cry. We were out of there in less than 2 hours. [For those of you in the northwest part of Phoenix, I highly reccomend Phoenix Children's Hospital Urgent Care Center at 51st Ave/the 101.] This is the 3rd time he's gotten stitches in 6 months, so he's getting pretty good at it. This time, his poor chin needed 9 stitches. That makes for a grand total of 18 stitches and all on his face! We will officially nickname him one of two names: "Scar" or "Stitch". Which do you like better? Or do you have a better suggestion? And one last thing - a while back, I bought Casey a bookmark that says his name and what it means with a Bible verse underneath it. Can you guess what Casey means? BRAVE. I think that's pretty appropriate, based on how well he handles his injuries. Oh, and if anyone can fashion a helmet for Casey's chin, I'd be willing to consider that...

Halloween and other pix from October

The kids had a blast tonight! Casey was giddy with anticipation and kept asking ALL DAY, "when can we go 'truck' or treating?". We only went around our little block in our neighborhood and then headed to Pure Heart Christian Fellowship where our neighbor is the lead pastor there. They were having a festival and "trunk or treating" with lots of games and bouncy houses! Then we headed over to their house to hang out afterwards. We had fun laughing about the "Where Did I Come From" book that I was given to explain "the birds and the bees" when I was little! (I came across it while going through my childhood books when we were preparing for our garage sale). It was a good night and we all had fun, but got to bed really late! I'm praying that the kids sleep in tomorrow morning!

Here is our gang, sitting on the wall in front of our house, ready to trick or treat!

Emily - The Flower Fairy

Casey - The Power Ranger

Ryan - Optimus Prime (Transformers)

Hitting up the last house of the evening, I had to get a picture of them in action!

Emily is checking out her goods!

Can you believe she left that flower headband on all night?

I pulled her in the wagon because her little legs can't keep up with the rest of ours!

Lucy even got to come with us!

My sweet and thoughtful step-mom sent us a box of fall goodies, including cake mix, frosting, halloween cupcake holders, halloween sprinkles to decorate the cupcakes with and even a halloween spatula! Here are the boys making the cupcakes.

Two of our neighbor kids came over to help decorate the cupcakes

When Ryan is concentrating, he really works his tongue!

Spoiled dog!

Ryan plays for the Glendale Badgers (coach pitch baseball). They won their game today!

Casey is playing T-ball for the Blue Stars

Here's his buddy, Micah. "Nope, I did not just eat a powdered sugar donut. Not me, no-sir-ee!"

Here's another buddy of Casey's, Zachary

Here are the 4 musketeers: Casey, Micha, Zachary and Jonah

God Cares

Most of the time, I find myself crying out to God for major things. I forget that He cares about the little things too.

I struggle with staying within my grocery budget. Nine times out of ten I go over by about $30 to $50. I would really like to try the "envelope system" for non-bill expenses but Tripp doesn't think that I can stick with it. So this month I really wanted to show him that I could do it. That I could stick to my budget. But on October 20th when I sat down to figure out how much I had left to spend for the month, I was shocked to realize that I only had $38 to work with. But, I gave it over to the Lord and asked Him to show me what to do with that $38. I discovered that I had a Fry's giftcard in my wallet, but I thought it only had $10 or $15 on it. I looked it up online, entered my giftcard number and do you know how much I had on there? $100!!

God is so faithful.

When I went to the store, I was armed with my carefully planned out list and specific coupons. All the while, asking God to help me as I shopped, guide me, help me to not be impulsive. I had thrown 2 bags of candy into my cart because I had a coupon that made them a good deal. As I was unloading my stuff onto the conveyer belt, I picked up the candy and realized that I needed to put it back. So I did. Once I had given my club card and my coupons to the checker, do you know what my total was? $100.15.

God is so faithful.

Whenever I give it over to Him, he is so faithful to take care of things for me. Why don't I do that all the time? He cares about every little detail of my life. Things don't always go the way I want them to, but in the end, I usually can see that God had a better plan than the one I wanted.

So, all this to say, give everything to God. Everything. He can handle it.

Mama's Losin' It!

This is the title of a blog I've read before and it's just fitting for how I'm feeling lately! I don't even have time to be sitting here venting, but I must, or I may implode.

I love being a mom. I love being a stay at home mom. I just don't think I do it very well! I'm drowning in a never ending list of things to do: papers to fill out and return that come hom in my kids' bags, a sea of laundry growing by the hour on my sofa, a floor that desperately needs to be mopped, a bathroom that looks like a science project (according to my husband!), t-ball practice, baseball practice, homework, dinner, my Hallmark job (that is about to get really busy for the Holiday season), a Bible study that I'm supposed to work on daily but have only sat down with it once this week.

Okay, I vented. Now I must start digging my way out of all my "to-do's". If anyone feels like they have it together and can offer me some advice or fantastic organizational tips, please pass it along!

A Milestone For Casey!

Casey can officially ride a two wheeler bicycle at the age of 4! Tripp took him to the park a couple weeks ago and they practiced in the grass and he got it pretty quick. Here is a video of them below:

Then, just the other day, Tripp got Casey going in our cul-de-sac and now he can steer, kind of (he almost crashed into me!):

I'm so proud of him! I didn't learn to ride my 2-wheeler until after I was 6! He got the hang of it so quickly and he was fearless! Good job, baby boy! We're looking forward to getting the boys on their bikes, Emily in the jogging stroller and going for family run/rides now that the weather is finally cooling off!

The Smell of a Mom

The sense of scent is powerful, isn't it? It can make your mouth salivate or turn your stomach upside down. It can change your mood. It can bring back memories.

We've been going through boxes in our garage for an upcoming garage sale we're having. Since my mom and grandma passed away, I've had boxes of their things in our garage for a couple of years now. It's finally time to sort through it and decide what to keep and what to get rid of. I didn't realize that I needed to prepare myself emotionally just to get ready for a garage sale. But I almost lost it when I opened up a Sterlite container of my mom's sweaters. There it was. Her smell. I didn't know that I still had anything that smelled like her. I have her jewelry box and every once in a while when I open it, I think I can smell her perfume. When she first passed away, I wore her white sweatshiret jacket every morning and would just sit and smell it until it no longer smelled like her.

My mom always smelled good. When I would walk into her house, it smelled like her. When I would give her a big hug because we hadn't seen each other for a while, I would catch a whiff. When I was little, I wanted to smell like her and she would put a dab of her perfume on me. When Emily sees me getting out my body spray, she runs over and asks me if she can smell pretty too. Sometimes I thought my mom wore too much perfume - in fact, I can remember, as a teenager, during the summer when I would get to sleep in, I wouldn't wake up until my mom left for work. She would spray her perfume as the last thing she did before leaving and the strong smell of it would drift into my room and wake me up. And sometimes, she'd pull out a little bottle of perfume or scented lotion when we were driving in the car and dab it on herself and I'd get so irritated because the smell was over powering in the confines of a car! I miss her so much. And the smell of her things stings a little bit, but I'm thankful for them! I want to vacuum seal it so that every now and then, when I really miss her, I can open it up and breathe her in. It's not the same to just have the perfume that she used, because the scent of my mom was more than that. I can't describe it. She just had an essence.

Tiny Dancer

Emily loves music and she loves to dance! I had my iPod on the other day and caught her doing this:

And this:

If that's not cute, I don't know what is!!

Emily's Favorite Person

As much as she's her Mama's Girl, Emily's favorite person, hands down, is her Nan. This is Tripp's mom, Elaine, and Emily just adores her. She asks about Nan constantly and when can we see Nan. Up until recently, Emily would call her "Nee". Just to show you how much she loves her Nan, tonight as we met up with them for dinner at Red Robin, I pointed out Elaine to Emily. Once she spied her, she yelled, "Oh yay!" And goes tearing up the sidewalk with her arms outstretched straight for her Nan. I just love their bond. It's so sweet and heartwarming.

There's also a part of me that thinks she probably would've had a similar bond to her Mimi...

BFFs

I love these ladies! We all met last school year as each of us had a child in the same afternoon kindergarten class. We just got to know each other by chatting during drop off and pick up (one of the only benefits to not having a "drive-thru drop off" at our kindergarten class is getting to know the other moms!). They are, from left to right: Jenna who has a daughter named Reagan; Jessica who has a daughter named Samantha; Tonya who has a daughter name Savannah and then me, who has a son. I'm the odd ball :-) But our kids still play amazingly well together. What's also really cool is that all 4 of us have younger sons who play well together! All our little boys are between the ages of 3 and 4, but again, I'm the odd ball because I'm the only one with a 3rd child :-). All summer we fostered our friendship and got together to swim and hang out. This school year, we have committed to getting together 3 times a week and doing the P90X workout DVDs. I'm telling you, I could not do this on my own. I'd rather stick sharp objects in my eyes than workout to a DVD. But doing it with Jenna, Jessica and Tonya makes it fun and we forget our pain :-) Today, we celebrated Jessica's (undisclosed age) birthday! We got all gussied up and headed to Pei Wei for lunch, but first had to stop over and see the sale rack at White House/Black Market! I found a super cute top for $9.99! After lunch we headed next door to Coldstone for some ice cream. It sounds like I'm describing the perfect way to celebrate my own birthday - bargain shopping, chinese food and ice cream! We just had a great time and laughed a lot. And I have to give my amazing husband props here. Are you ready for this? He willingly agreed to watch all of our little boys - Four 3 & 4 year olds, in the pool, no less! Thanks, Honey. You are the best! Anyway, I'm just very thankful for my friendship with these great gals.

Casey's first day of pre-school!

Casey has been anticipating this day for months! It was really hard for him when Ryan started school and he had to wait another month! He met his teacher, Mrs. Cornelius last Tuesday and the next day he threw a fit when I told him he didn't start for another week!

Here he is on the way to school:

And just for fun, here are Ryan and Emily too :-)

Ryan starts school at 8am and Casey doesn't start until 9am. So to kill some time we went to the nearby Safeway and decided to get Mrs. Cornelius some flowers. Casey asked if he could get some whipped cream from the Starbuck's inside Safeway so we obliged:

He was gracious enough to share with his sister

Here he is waiting outside the classroom

And with Mrs. Cornelius' flowers

The proverbial shot with the little sister

And the moment he's been waiting for!

It was so cute - as we were about to turn into school after returning from Safeway, we hear this excited squeal from the backseat! Casey just couldn't contain himself, he was just giddy! After he came home, he told us all about his day and the songs he sang. For the rest of the day, all we heard was him singing this song, "5 little monkeys swinging from a tree, teasing Mr. Alligator 'can't catch me!'. Along came Mr. Alligator, quiet as can be and SNAPPED that monkey right out of that tree!" All I can say is, I hope those monkeys learned their lesson!

Lightning

Today was the kind of day that we 'Phoenicians' get excited about. The kind of day where our excitement is 'newsbreaking'. The kind of day when swimming playdates have to be canceled. Yes, people. It rained in Phoenix. And all of the above statements are true.

Usually our monsoons strike in the evening. But today, the storm rolled through in the morning and kind of lingered all day. I liked the clouds and drizzle (but not the humid 95 degree temp.). I am thankful for a day out of the triple digits, though. This morning, thankfully I got home from the grocery before the sky opened up. Around 9:30 this morning, minutes after the kids came inside from running around in the rain in our cul-de-sac, lightning struck. I swear it felt like it hit our house. But nothing was burning (Tripp says the house would be on fire if it'd been struck). But it had to have hit close because the windows rattled. The ground shook. It scared me enough to cause me to let out an uncontrolled shriek! Tripp poked his head outside our front and said, "you wanna know where the lightning struck?" It was our neighbor's, across the cul-de-sac from us, front lawn!! From our window, we could see a huge mud mound and grass divets all over her driveway! I couldn't wait for the storm to pass so I could go check it out! It was unbelievable:

From my uneducated perspective, it looks to me like the lightning struck right between these two palm trees and caused this 1 foot deep trench across the lawn to the brick border.

This is normally a nicely manicured lantana bush, but now, blown to smithereens! If you look at the brick border just behind the palm tree trunk, you can see how the border looked all the way around. Look at all the tiny pieces of brick that border became.

See that big gray rock? It used to be over by the palm trees. The force of the lightning strike, flung it about 10'!

Two of her yard lights were blown out of the ground, this one landed in the driveway. Look at all the debris from the blast!

Excuse my excitement, but I've never seen, up close, what a lightning strike can do. I'm amazed! And completely thankful that God spared our kids who had JUST been playing several feet away.